Creating a University Technology Commercialisation Programme: Confronting Conflicts Between Learning, Discovery, and Commercialisation Goals

Our knowledge-based society is pressing universities to transform from monastic scholarly enclaves into producers of new technologies and incubators of start-up firms. However, converting scientists' curiosity-driven discoveries into commercially viable innovations has proven so difficult that observers liken the journey to crossing a 'Valley of Death'. We conceptualise the challenges of commercialising university inventions in terms of three gaps: the technology discovery gap, the commercialisation gap, and the venture launch gap. We chronicle the inception and evolution of a technology commercialisation programme at the University of Oregon, relating how the university confronted and dealt with the three gaps, and describing the intra-organisational partnerships developed to address them. We find that negotiating the gaps requires assimilation of a technology commercialisation mission into the traditional academic missions of education and scientific discovery. To do this, universities must confront fundamental contradictions between learning, discovery, and commercialisation.

[1]  Johanna L. Francis,et al.  Creating a Cluster While Building a Firm: Entrepreneurs and the Formation of Industrial Clusters , 2005 .

[2]  Magnus Gulbrandsen,et al.  Initiatives to promote commercialization of university knowledge , 2006 .

[3]  H. Etzkowitz Entrepreneurial scientists and entrepreneurial universities in American academic science , 1983, Minerva.

[4]  Aldo Geuna,et al.  Determinants of university participation in EU-funded R & D cooperative projects , 1998 .

[5]  Walter W. Powell,et al.  Universities and the market for intellectual property in the life sciences , 1998 .

[6]  A. Link,et al.  Assessing the Impact of Organizational Practices on the Productivity of University Technology Transfer Offices : An Exploratory Study # , 1999 .

[7]  James R. Johnson Technology transfer and Universities , 1988 .

[8]  Mike Wright,et al.  Technology Transfer and Universities' Spin-Out Strategies , 2003 .

[9]  Sarfraz A. Mian,et al.  Assessing and managing the university technology business incubator: An integrative framework , 1997 .

[10]  M. Feldman,et al.  Entpreprenerial Universities and Technology Transfer: A Conceptual Framework for Understanding Knowledge-Based Economic Development , 2006 .

[11]  S. Shane Special Issue on University Entrepreneurship and Technology Transfer: Selling University Technology: Patterns from MIT , 2002, Manag. Sci..

[12]  Sarfraz A. Mian,et al.  The university business incubator: A strategy for developing new research/technology-based firms , 1996 .

[13]  Maryann Feldman,et al.  Academic Entrepreneurs: Organizational Change at the Individual Level , 2008, Organ. Sci..

[14]  F. Rothaermel,et al.  University entrepreneurship: a taxonomy of the literature , 2007 .

[15]  Louis G. Tornatzky Benchmarking University–Industry Technology Transfer: A Six Year Retrospective , 2001 .

[16]  Philip E. Auerswald,et al.  Valleys of Death and Darwinian Seas: Financing the Invention to Innovation Transition in the United States , 2003 .

[17]  R. Cooper,et al.  New Products: What Separates Winners from Losers? , 1987 .

[18]  Mike Wright,et al.  Resources, capabilities, risk capital and the creation of university spin-out companies , 2005 .

[19]  Marie C. Thursby,et al.  Proofs and Prototypes for Sale: The Licensing of University Inventions , 2001 .

[20]  Arnaldo Momigliano,et al.  The introduction of the teaching of history as an academic subject and its implications , 1983 .

[21]  Marie C. Thursby,et al.  Are Faculty Critical? Their Role in University-Industry Licensing , 2003 .

[22]  Kim B. Clark,et al.  Architectural Innovation: The Reconfiguration of Existing Product Technologies and the Failure of , 1990 .

[23]  P. Ziamou Commercializing new technologies: consumers' response to a new interface , 2002 .

[24]  H. Etzkowitz,et al.  The Future of the University and the University of the Future: Evolution of Ivory Tower to Entrepreneurial Paradigm , 2000 .

[25]  Juha Tuunainen Contesting a Hybrid Firm at a Traditional University , 2005 .